Hey Mark,
I see you just finished a Howard Thurman book. I just finished completing his author page on LibraryThing.com. What did you think of the book? How did you hear about him? I wish I had more of his work, but only have a few books, one a biography.
Nanci

posted by Book2Dragon at 7:34 pm (EST) on Mar 31, 2008

Thanks for correcting the zip on Wolfgang's Books for me. I rue the day that I move out of Spring City and have to remember a new zip code!

I haven't been to Wolfgang's recently but I like it a lot. It's a much different atmosphere than Indian Path or The Bookworm -- they focus more on classic and/or rare books. The staff is great. I tend to come away with more books on a run to Indian Path or The Bookworm, though. When did you volunteer at The Bookworm? We've probably run into each other at some point. I've been going there pretty regularly since discovering it a few years back during a vain search for a parking spot in the hospital parking lot.

posted by MidnightRain at 1:22 am (EST) on Mar 7, 2008

Hi, i just saw a message from you in the math group. i took some classes at swat back in the day as part of the tri-college exchange (mawrtyr). i hope you're enjoying your time there. It all ends so quickly.

posted by NativeRoses at 9:35 pm (EST) on Sep 11, 2007

Thank you for your comments. For living math books for children, I recommend any of the Sir Circumference books, any of the Murderous Math books or Theoni Pappas' books. My younger children have enjoyed the Zoo Math books and my older children enjoy Ian Stewarts book. Some "easy to find books" that are great for basic concepts are found at Scholastic, either through their website or their books fairs.

Last but not least, I owe most of what I know about living math books to this site: http://livingmath.net/

I hope this helps!

Krystal

posted by littlecastlebythesea at 3:08 pm (EST) on Aug 9, 2007

hey mark -- great to meet you. it's a pleasure to find another inveterate counter! (gender, i mean) - but don't wring your hands, just read more awesome women writers.

librarything is the only social networking software i've enjoyed; it's always a kick hearing from fellow book lovers/readers ...

posted by lquilter at 10:09 pm (EST) on Aug 6, 2007

Critical Self-analysis: author's gender. I went through my collection and tagged male and female* authors where I could reliably do so. Was a little grossed out by the overwhelming raw majority of male authors, but not too surprised at myself, really. I'll have to work on it. Omitting my 26 books tagged "comic strip" made me feel better: my family's old collection of Dilbert by Scott Adams, The Far Side by Gary Larson, and Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson. I find the data verrrry interesting, especially 55% vs. 67%

~~~~~~

Books by Male Authors:

Raw #: 295
% of books by genderable authors**: 70%
Raw # read: 163
% read: 55%
% of all read books by genderable authors: 66%

Books by Female Authors:

Raw #: 125
% of books by genderable authors: 30%
Raw # read: 84
% read: 67%
% of all read books by genderable authors: 34%

Upon my mother's suggestion, I'll include this data as well:

Total number of unique male authors: 200
Average number of books by one male author: 1.475

Total number of unique female authors: 68
Average number of books by one female author: 1.838

~~~~~~

* apologies and hand-wringing over gender binarism
** excludes collections of work by multiple authors, multiple author reference works, etc.

posted by marklewis at 9:12 pm (EST) on Aug 3, 2007

Hi Mark

Thanks for your comments. I started collecting Ursula Le Guin in the early 1980s so I was lucky that a lot was still in print then. When I was at University I used to check the old paper monthly "books in print" for Le Guin and Tolkien which helped me spot some of the more obscure things when they came out. With other items its just been keeping my eyes open for 36 years (and again in the old pre-internet days getting on the mailing lists of lots of book dealers).

Best wishes

Trevor

posted by Rivendell at 5:28 am (EST) on Mar 18, 2007